Magical Magnolia
There is a land, far, far away, where the cedar-scented candles flow like wine and cupcakes as big as your hand grow on trees. It’s a magical place, where Chip and Joanna Gaines are said to roam from time to time, spreading goodwill and beautiful housewares everywhere they go.
It’s a place called Waco, Texas—the Magnolia Silos to be exact—and now that I’ve experienced it for myself—on a girls trip a couple weeks ago with my mom and two of my sisters-in-law—all I want to do is go back.
If you’ve ever watched “Fixer Upper” on HGTV or Magnolia Network, you know what I’m talking about. Chip and Joanna Gaines are legends in the home renovation and decor world, what with their shiplap and white subway tile and tasteful hits of natural woodwork throughout their exquisitely decorated homes. And when they’re not busy running their empire, filming their TV shows, and taking care of their five kids, they apparently dabble in saving troubled towns.
Before Chip and Joanna came on the scene, Waco was mostly known for being the place where the Branch Davidians met their tragic end, as well as being the home of Baylor University. But besides that, and according to our heavily-Southern-accented tour bus driver (because yes, we took a “Fixer Upper”-themed tour of the town), “Waay-co used tuh be feeled with gayeengs and craahm and no jaahbs this wuay, that or thuh uther.”
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, because little old Waco is now a destination spot, a veritable Disneyland for middle-aged women. The Gainses have taken two decrepit silos in the middle of the town and built around them a two-block-wide shopping district with a large home decor store as its anchor and cute little shops running down either side, filled with things like sweet-smelling soaps, delicate stationery, finely crafted clothing, and other wildly overpriced items that somehow seem like reasonable purchases when 90 million women around you are buying the same things.
There’s also a mini baseball diamond with wooden bats and wiffle balls at the ready; a reconstructed chapel with killer air conditioning; a field where bored men and boys can toss around a football; and a bakery that you have to wait in line to get into but you don’t mind one bit because it’s so beautiful inside and the frosting is piped so high and the employees are so helpful and nice.
My sister-in-law Suzette is a native Texan who lives just a couple hours from Waco, so she was the master planner of this trip. She had the forethought to get us reservations for breakfast one morning at another Chip and Joanna triumph, a nearby restaurant called Magnolia Table. And wow, were we excited to eat. We ordered fresh buttermilk biscuits with five types of butter on the side, pumpkin donut holes, freshly squeezed juice, and soda—and that was all before our actual breakfast entrees arrived.
And the service! Excuse me while I wax eloquent about our server, a young man named Jae who was as attentive as the butler of Downton Abbey but had a sassy Southern accent and the wisdom to not bat an eye when we asked for a second order of biscuits.
“I just got an email from our credit card company,” Logan said a few days after I returned home from Waco. “They’re wondering if you meant to give a 33 percent tip at Magnolia Table last week.”
I leaned over and looked at the credit card charge displayed on his computer.
“Absolutely,” I replied, “and I would have given more if I could have done the math quick enough.”
Some places are just so magical that you’ll do anything to be a part of it. And bless my heart y’all, I’m fixin’ to go back just as soon as I can.
